“The longer you have to prepare for an attack you know is coming for you, the better. Time allows you to make preparations, strengthen your defenses, gather your rations, prepare your people for the war to come, and so on. As such, it was always the norm for the attacker to aim to reach their target as swiftly as possible to prevent such preparation.” - Liang Shi-Zu, famed tactician from the Huan Confederation.

Miriel Cavanaugh, temporary commander of Levain’s militia – or at least, the portion that remained within the city itself – surveyed the siege camps being built in the distance with a serious expression on her face.

She had to admit that while she was impressed with how the Free Lances had trained the city’s militia, she had not expected much when the mercenaries left town with some volunteers to tackle the enemies headed their way. There were at most ten thousand of them compared to well over fifteen times that number in enemy soldiers.

For them to have bought an extra day or two for the city to prepare its defenses better was all Miriam hoped for.

In the end, however, she found her every expectation blown away as the mercenaries managed to delay the incoming enemy forces that massively outnumbered them by a whole week instead. Even more surprisingly, from the reports they sent back to Levain, neither the mercenaries nor the volunteers with them lost that many people. They still preserved most of their forces and now awaited the return of Estelle’s forces from the south, with whom they would later coordinate their movements.

Until then, they noted that they would attempt to disrupt the enemy’s base when chances present itself, but not to expect too much out of them for the time being.

Miriel honestly wouldn’t mind if the mercenaries asked to sit out the rest of the fighting at this point. That one week they bought for Levain was plenty of time for the militia still in the city – as well as activated reserves – to double down on the city’s defenses. They even had time to rig the outermost layer of wall into a deathtrap meant to collapse on the invaders in the eventuality that it became indefensible, thanks to the help of a squad of dwarven engineers left in the city.

She was also glad that the city never had the time or money to rebuild the ruins of the houses between the sixth and seventh walls of the city. Since nobody lived there to begin with, there had been no need to evacuate people out of the region. Instead, their soldiers and engineers had free reign as they turned the region into a trap-riddled hellscape.

One their enemies would have to stand on in order to assault the sixth wall.

As she promised to the mercenary captain, their dependents and support staff had also been allowed to take cover inside Levain itself. Those dependents even made themselves useful and helped with anything they could do, be it helping repair damaged gambesons or with preparing food for the militiamen. Overall, it was a boon to have them around.

Their support staff was even more useful. The mercenaries possessed a group of skilled blacksmiths who immediately went to work and helped repair weapons and armor for the militia, free of charge. Their fletchers also prepared bales of arrows for use in the defense of the city, while only charging for the cost of the raw materials they needed.

Which equated to nothing as the city was all too happy to supply them with the raw materials free of charge in turn.

Some of the mercenary support staff even helped the dwarven engineers with rigging the seventh wall and preparing traps in the ruins between the sixth and seventh walls. Under normal circumstances, Miriel would have been worried that they might be secretly working for the other side, but these mercenaries had already proven themselves over the past couple of years and at least had more than earned her trust.

The fact that most of their own people were outside the walls, hidden in the forests as they continued to harass enemies that greatly outnumbered them, risking their lives in the process, was proof enough. Casualties had been light so far, from the reports, but Miriel knew all too well that it was mostly thanks to the favorable terrain that allowed the mercenaries to pull off hit and fade attacks effectively.

In the plains around Levain itself, such tactics would be far more difficult to pull off, given the lack of cover. At least Miriel thought that way, until she spotted some activity in the distance during the evening.

A group of riders – one led by her old friend Ze’phane – had snuck through the forest to the South-east to hide their approach and suddenly rushed out towards the nearly finished siege camp being built by the Podovnians.They covered the distance too quickly for the enemy soldiers to react properly and hurled multiple clay urns at the palisades which broke on contact.

Then Ze’phane, who rode at the back and was last to arrive, hurled a lit torch at the area where the urns shattered, and that section of the palisades instantly burst into flames. The riders used the flame to cover their retreat, and by the time Podovnian cavalry came out to chase after them, they had already run off into the distance.

Meanwhile, the Podovnian soldiers had to deal with the section of their camp’s wall being on fire. Fire that threatened to spread around. Even if the damage ended up being minor, the incident alone would at least add another slight delay to the enemy’s timetable, not to mention further hurt their morale.

Miriel was honestly surprised that the Podovnians had not sent out their cavalry to chase after Ze’phane, but after some observation, she noticed – her eyes were still quite sharp despite her old age – that the enemy riders seemed nervous and didn’t dare to chase. The mercenaries must have instilled the idea that any chase would be met with an ambush in them, then.

It was truly more than she could ever ask for.